Julia Gets a Life (40 page)

            ‘I’ve been here.’

            ‘Since when?’

            ‘Since Sunday morning. When I got back from Brighton. Well, apart from spending Sunday night at Howard’s...

            ‘Howard’s?’ (Richard, Max, Emma. Close part harmony.)

            I can’t even face
beginning
to explain.

            ‘Howard. My friend. I was ill and I stayed at his place.’

            ‘Ill?,’ asks Richard. ‘What sort of ill?’

            ‘Ill from a doner kebab - yes, I
know -
certainly not from ingesting any class A drugs.’

            ‘So that’s why you weren’t at work. When I rang them they said they hadn’t a clue where you were. They said they hadn’t heard from you since before you went on holiday. But I left messages on the ansafone, here - half a dozen of them. Why didn’t you answer them?’

            ‘Because I didn’t get them. There weren’t any messages on the ansafone. There haven’t been any messages on the ansafone at all.’

            Richard stands up and then strides from the room. Moments later the air is filled with the tortured outpourings of a man with a lot on his mind. But it isn’t Richard, and it certainly isn’t Craig. It is Malcolm - and given how much of his soul he is bearing, he would probably pay me hard cash for the tape.

            Then it stops. And a couple of clicks and whirrs later, Richard returns.

            ‘The cassette’s full,’ he says.

            Which is
why
.....which is
why
....which is....
yes!

           
‘Well that’s great! Thanks a lot, Mum,’ says Emma, rising and snatching up her backpack from the floor.

            ‘What?’

            ‘You’ve just dragged us all the way back here for nothing, that’s all.’

            ‘But
I
didn’t...’

            ‘Oh, don’t worry. Don’t you worry about
ou
r holiday, will you?’

            And off she goes.

            ‘Name’s Jerome, ‘Richard mouths, ‘from the village.’

            Oh dear.

            Max follows soon after, though in altogether better spirits, as he is to be re-united earlier than expected with his electricals cache.

            Richard, on the other hand, shows no sign of leaving.

            To show willing, at least, I make him a coffee. He looks tired under his tan.

            ‘Didn’t rain, then?’ I comment.

            ‘Not once.’

            ‘It’s been pretty hot here as well.’

            ‘It sounds like everything in your life has been pretty hot just lately.’

            I shrug.

            ‘I’ve been busy...’

            ‘So it’s for real, then? All this high flying Sunday Supplement stuff?’

            I shrug again.

            ‘Who knows? I mean, yes, it’s for real in that I’ve had a couple of really good commissions. But it’s freelance. It could all stop as of now.’

            ‘I didn’t realise, you know, that you were keen on getting into all that sort of thing again. I thought...’

            ‘I didn’t know it myself until it happened.’

            ‘Hmmm.’ Richard takes a sip of his coffee. Then says,

            ‘We...I was really worried about you. I didn’t tell the kids, but I didn’t know what to think. I mean, you’ve been acting so strangely lately that I kept thinking...’

            ‘Oh, Richard, come
on
. What do you take me for? I’m not some impressionable young girl, you know. I can look after myself.’

            ‘I know that. But you read so much about that sort of thing. Rock Stars and TV people and such like. I should think it’s a fairly seductive lifestyle...’

            ‘Well it’s certainly exciting. And different. And for me, creatively, it is infinitely more enjoyable than taking crap pictures of snotty kids all day. But like I said, it could all end tomorrow.’

            ‘Do you think it will?’

            ‘I don’t know. Features are features, but with the book coming out as well I suppose I’m hoping I might get asked to do more. Now the children are older it would certainly be easier for me to do jobs in London and so on. I haven’t really thought about it. Except that I can’t imagine spending the rest of my career in a Time Of Your Life photo studio.’

            ‘I can see that. And look, I really am sorry about what I said before you went away. It wasn’t fair. And it wasn’t true. The kids...well, you know...’

            I nod. I’m not angry about it any more. It seems like forever ago.

            ‘Forget it,’ I say, as Richard drains his coffee and prepares to leave. He calls goodbyes up the stairs and taps the ansafone as I open the front door for him.

            ‘Told you,’ he says, grinning.

            I hold my hand up in surrender.

            Then he turns on the path and gives me a peculiar little smile.

            ‘It’s nice that we can have a conversation without rowing,’ he says.

            But now I know what he meant when he said rowing made him feel better. He knows, as do I, that an absence of rowing is not nice at all.

            It is a clear night and the sky is sprinkled with stars. Instead of closing the door as I usually do, I stand and watch as Richard unlocks the car, climbs in and drives away. He is frightened, I realise, that he really has lost me.

            I close the front door. At this moment, he has.

*

            But it was not Craig but Colin who was first able to enjoy the luxury of free rein on an empty cassette.

            ‘Are you still speaking to me?’ he asked, when I called him back on Friday night.

            ‘Of course I am. That article had nothing to do with you, surely?’

            ‘Well, yes and no, sweet.’

            Hmmm. ‘In what way?’

            ‘Well, only that the newsroom, casting about, as they do, for something other than Royal squabbles to rant about, called me and wanted to know the name of the
Depth
freelance I had covering the pix for the gig. So, naturally, I said you. It was only afterward that it occurred to me what the connection was. When I had a half hour of earbending from Donna about it..’

            ‘Donna Talbot? But she was there for some music mag.’

            ‘Yep. But she does a lot for Depth - someone probably spotted her and put two and two together. You should be grateful for your current anonymity.’

            ‘Of course!
She
must have been the one who got arrested. Hah! Was she charged?’

            ‘Certainly was. Along with Heidi Harris, that Bunting bloke, and the entire line up of some hip-hop band. I bet you’re glad you
weren’t
there.’

            ‘That’s entirely thanks to you and that beach shoot you wanted. Though, mind you, it doesn’t make much difference now, does it?’

            ‘Don’t fret. It’s all yesterday’s news. Now listen, sweet, I’m sitting in front of a whole pile of wonderful proofs here. It’s not strictly necessary, but do you fancy a trip up to the smoke to have a run through? Obviously, the production team has last word, but I’m sure you’d like to have some input on this.’

            ‘When though? The children are just back from holiday, and if I don’t make it into work next week I wont have a work to make it into.’

            ‘Well I was thinking Wednesday-ish. Couldn’t you just take a day off?’

            Sod it. I could.

            ‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort it. I’ll ring you on Monday.’

            ‘Great. So how was it? I’m told
Kite
upstaged everyone.’

            ‘They were good. It was great. Not a bit like doing a proper job. I could get used to the lifestyle.’

            ‘Darling, you were born for it.’

            I wish.

            In fact, wishing was what I spent most of the weekend doing. Wishing I was twenty four, wishing I was one hundred and four, wishing I could tell Mr Fat Chops Area Manager to fuck off, Craig-style, wishing Lily was around to talk to, wishing I could jolt myself out of this dreadful inertia, wishing the children were a little older, wishing the children were a lot younger. Wishing I could rewind. Or fast forward. Or just
feel
different.

            On Sunday afternoon I sat in the garden for three whole hours listening to Craig, courtesy of
Kite,
on Emma’s iPod.

            ‘Are you ill still, Mum?’ Max enquired when he emerged, blinking, from the house.

            ‘I’m fine, darling, really.’

            ‘Then why are you being so funny?’

            ‘Funny?’

            ‘Yeah. You’ve gone all peculiar. Like Dad said..’

            ‘He said that?’

            ‘He’s been worried you’re not well, but he doesn’t like to ask.’

            ‘Really?’

            And then he called. Just like that. When I was least expecting it.

            I was putting a pizza in the oven (couldn’t even be fussed to make a roast)

            Emma answered.

            ‘Muuummm!’ She bellowed. ‘It’s for you. Clive James or someone.’ And then she squeaked. And clapped her hand over her mouth. And waved her free hand wildly about and did a strange little dance on the hall carpet. Then said,

            ‘It’s him!’ she rasped,
sotto voce
, while I picked up the receiver. ‘It’s him, isn’t it? It’s him! It
is
, isn’t it? It
is,
it
is!
’.

            I flapped her away and she belted up the stairs to get Max.

            It was like trying to breathe normally when you are conscious of your breathing.

            When I picked up the receiver it was with adrenaline schussing at great speed through my veins, my heartbeat at a canter and with a perceptible tremor in the hand that held the phone. It was, even at that instant, something of a revelation to me, that I could manage to produce a sound at all. Yet I did; a somewhat squeaky ‘hello’.

            Craig said ‘hello’ also. A strong voice.
His
voice. And all I could think of as response was,